One Word: Intentional (Part Two: Food — Our Whole30 & Anti-Cavity Meal Plans)

Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to be intentional about food in some new way this week or month.

I shared how I happened upon such intentionality in my regular life in last week’s Monday Mission, and how fruitful it had been in our parental discipline, our marriage, and our household in general. This week, I’ll challenge you to do something specific with your diet, and I’ll share what we’ve been up to the past few weeks.

Some ideas for you might include:

Pay attention to what cravings you have – should you fight them off? Or are they possibly your body’s way of telling you of a deficiency?

Notice the foods you eat late at night. Are they good for you?

If you have any sort of digestive distress or pain on a regular basis, keep a food journal to try to pinpoint (or at least get a running hypothesis about) the food or foods that might trigger it.

If you’ve been thinking about trying an elimination diet, plan for it now. (It does take some planning!)

Make a goal to cut out an unhealthy food – like maybe sugar? – for a period of time. Intentionality requires setting boundaries, so try a week, or a month, or 40 days…

Determine to not eat when you’re not hungry. Be cognizant about going back for seconds instead of habitual.

Commit to eating dinner sitting down, with people you love as often as possible. Eating standing up or on the run or in front of a computer or other screen is generally mindless eating. Eating as a family (or with friends) has numerous health benefits far beyond the physical!

Get your kids to agree that they’ll try one new food each week. Shop with curiosity and courage!

What else might you choose to be specifically intentional about in your diet?

Our Intentionality: Whole30 & Healing Cavities

If you’ve been following me on Facebook at all lately, you’ve seen some of our meals – and lots of vegetables – as a result of my husband deciding to do a Whole30 for Lent. It fit perfectly with my trying to heal my cavities: We both avoid grains, legumes, sugars and all sweeteners, and he skips the dairy while I skip nuts as well.

The only high carb foods left are white potatoes and fruits (and I should not overdo the fruits either).

It’s been…interesting.

At first, it felt like we might starve. Or buy all the vegetables in the store. Or spend hours washing and cutting vegetables and then still feel starving half an hour after eating.

The reality has been far short of that (but in the general direction).

We did start out feeling pretty hungry all the time (it didn’t help that day one was Ash Wednesday, when adult Catholics are asked to fast by eating only one meal plus two small additions and avoid eating between meals).

This was my first shopping trip:

That’s a lot of produce!

As I shared this picture on Facebook and some of the meals we were eating, people asked if I was going to share our meal plan or write anything up on the blog, so I decided to show you how we’ve been intentional about food by sharing what we’ve eaten and what we’ve learned so far.

Whole30 Meals at the Kitchen Stewardship House

I started using Plan to Eat again since I was trying so many new recipes and vegetables in general, and it was a relief to have my shopping list all made up for me on my phone when I arrived at the store. Many of my recipes for the next 2-3 weeks are loaded into Plan to Eat as well, and you can search terms like “Whole30″ or “grain free” or “Paleo” to find applicable recipes from all the KSers in the KS group at PTE – a much better chance of finding great real food recipes there than a general Google search!

The following are standbys, things we always eat but won’t list:

Snacks might include:

jello

• nuts for hubs
• dried fruit (although I need to eat less of this!)
• lots of cheese slices for me
• pea pods and raw veggies
• grapefruits
• Clementines
• lots of bananas for hubs
• The meals:
• Ash Wednesday:
• egg for breakfast (hubs) – I ate a piece of leftover grain-free banana bread from The Healthy Breakfast Book

egg for lunch (hubs), my lunch was a salmon burger, yogurt, pea pods.

For dinner I screwed up French Onion soup because I forgot it had a whole stick of butter in it until I got to making it, already later than I should have been! We ended up having broth, sauteed veggies and flatbread for the kids (I made and froze gluten-free flatbread so they could have something with soup in general)

Thursday 2/19

egg and veggie scramble (peppers, onions, bok choy – topped with feta for me and radishes and tomatoes for him) + green smoothie (dairy-free for him – not entirely recommended on the Whole30, but I had greens I wanted to use up)

leftover meatball soup (one key to making a new elimination diet work is to make some “legal” meals leading up to it so you have leftovers to pull from!)

roast chicken, sweet potatoes, creamed cauliflower (pulled out steamed for hubs), sauteed veggies (fennel, onion, garlic, green beans, broccoli, spinach)

Friday 2/20 (meatless for Lent)

(kids and I) grain-free banana pancakes (to the right), (hubs) eggs and veggies

(kids) leftover white chicken chili, (me) tuna salad with cucumber slices, yogurt, (hubs) big salad with nuts, spicy dressing, lots of raw veggies

egg drop soup (recipe in The Healthy Breakfast Book), baked potatoes, roasted veggies (red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, onion) tossed in olive oil and a seasoning blend (picture above)

Saturday 2/21

quick breakfast before basketball game – eggs and veggies for adults, oatmeal for kids

leftover soups, chicken on salad (I was at a party – egg drop soup)

steak stir fry (how to marinate and stir fry in Better Than a Box) including bok choy, onions, peppers, broccoli, green beans, pea pods, and I forgot to include the cabbage. Was going to do cauli-rice but decided to skip it and just did some white rice for the kids.

Sunday 2/22

sausage patties with egg “sandwiches” (photo), sauteed onions, peppers, mushrooms and greens, mugs of broth, plus yogurt for me (Sunday is cereal day for the kids)

leftover meatball soup (one bowl each left) plus chicken on a lettuce “wrap” with veggies (cheese for me)

cheeseburger soup without cheese for hubs, just served it at the table to mix in. Worked great! Served over leftover cold white rice for kids for some bulk (helped to cool their soup down without using an ice cube). Grain-free Cheesy Biscuits (eggs, butter, cheese, coconut flour) from Better Than a Box for me and kids. We are skipping pizza night on Sundays for Lent, although this time “simple soup” wasn’t much of a sacrifice!

Monday 2/23

Grain-free cinnamon apple breakfast porridge for those who could have nuts and yogurt for me

last of leftover roasted chicken on a salad with veggie toppings, cheese for me (mustard and Italian as dressing) + leftover roasted veggies from Thursday (I just toss the leftover veggies on our big cast iron griddle to heat them up – easy, and we don’t wash it, just scrape, so thankfully no new dishes are created)

hamburgers on grilled portabella mushroom caps with grilled onions, homemade guacamole, tomatoes and lettuce, homemade French fries, mug of egg drop soup

Tuesday 2/24

scrambled eggs, leftover diced fried sweet potatoes, small sausage patty (cheese on mine)

steak fajita salad with grilled onions and peppers, diced red onion, tomatoes, guacamole, salsa without sugar added from Meijer naturals (I thawed and sliced a bunch of steak Saturday and marinated some for Asian style stir fry and some for fajitas – such a yummy lunch, look at those pictures!)

spaghetti squash with no-sugar spaghetti sauce and homemade sausage, steamed cauliflower and broccoli, salads, guac for dipping

Wednesday 2/25

breakfast was probably whatever we had leftover from the week – shopping day! See how full the fridge gets after I get home?? Carrots, peppers, cabbage and rutabaga all get demoted to the countertop for a few days. The crisper drawers are PACKED, and they can handle it…If it wasn’t in the single digits, I’d leave all that in the garage. Here’s the rest of the shopping trip, plus 4 bunches of bananas, 10# of carrots, 6 peppers and 2 heads of cabbage:

Hubs was out for lunch with his old co-workers (steak and a dry potato) so John and I had whatever was around

Hubs remained out with friends to work out, and they fed him a legal dinner (chicken breast, broccoli, fruit) so the kids and I had leftover cheeseburger soup and grain-free biscuits.

Thursday 2/26

me and kids: green smoothie with yogurt, for everyone: eggs made to order with various veggies, leftover Thai ground meat from neighbor’s party Saturday (thanks, neighbor, of you’re reading! It was delish and used in a couple random meals this week!)

me: liver strips dredged in shredded coconut (I’m determined to heal these cavities!!) and plenty of mustard, leftover fajitas for hubby and John

leftover stir fry, mugs of broth (and then life starts to get tricky again – we had little food at the beginning, then I made gallons and gallons of broth and huge meals and we had a surplus of leftovers, but a few days in a row of eating leftovers and the fridge starts to look empty! Ok, so not empty…but just full of vegetables!)

Friday 2/27 (meatless)

kids: oatmeal, husband: leftover nut-based porridge, me: half grapefruit, sliced banana and coconut chips with milk

sauteed asparagus, onions, peppers and Brussels sprouts (in bacon grease) with optional egg on top, egg drop soup, tuna with homemade mayo and mustard, cheese for me, fresh veggies and salad for hubs (pic above)

This was such a yummy meal! We had a friend of my husband’s in from out of town, and lo and behold, he had just finished a Whole30 that week! It was a bit of a Twilight Zone experience for my husband, who has basically zero friends with kids, to suddenly have a friend even remotely “in his world” and “speaking our language.” It was fun! And I was happy to feed them well before The Big Cheat the following day…

St. Peter’s spicy fish seasoning on tilapia or salmon, baked potatoes, roasted beets (I’m the only one who will eat them), roasted purple cauliflower with smoked paprika and EVOO (delish! and gorgeous!), salads, black bean and avocado salad without the black beans (so good – so that’s tomato, avocado, pepper and onion salad with cilantro – super happy it worked without a main ingredient!)

Saturday 2/28

kids: leftover oatmeal adults: scrambled eggs with Swiss chard

leftover spaghetti squash (with cheese for me and the kids) + egg drop soup

The Big Cheat – hubby had tickets to a local event with good beer and better friends, and he lined it up with God before Lent that he would take this day off. He’ll still have 30 days+ before Easter to get the full experience, so we looked at the first 10 days as good practice.

sauteed cabbage, onions, mushrooms and Swiss chard with garlic, sliced sausage on top (they do sadly have sugar in the ingredients, but my husband was out and they were going to expire before Lent ended, so I decided to save my homemade ground sausage for another day), mugs of beef broth, sauteed Brussels sprouts (for me). Kids had white rice added and lots of fresh veggies for munching.

Just after this weekend, hubby started taking a new probiotic – Prescript Assist, which we received from my affiliate partner Perfect Supplements after I realized that our regular liquid probiotic has agave in it, a no-no on the Whole30. I’ll be updating this post on SBOs after we try this new one for a while! I didn’t want him off probiotics for 30 days, so I’m happy to have a non-dairy probiotic alternative. (If you order, use the code KS10 for 10% off!)

Sunday 3/1/15

“Tastes like Pizza” Breakfast hash – so yummy! I’ll share the recipe soon! It included leeks, celeriac, turnips, fennel, greens…and it was my kids who gave it its name, after I served it expecting them to hate it. Nice!

lunch was scraping the bottom of the barrel of leftovers, and I had liver strips – the 3yo, easily the pickiest eater in the household, steals them from my plate and eats them! Crazy….

baked chicken with pizza sauce (had an open jar I needed to get rid of) and cheese for the kids, taco seasoning or curry for the adults, roasted veggies (rutabaga, leek, carrot and Brussels sprouts), garlic soup (because I need to take a new photo – do NOT click over there, it’s horrible!)

It was at this meal that we heard the priceless phrase, “Rutabagas are good!” from the 3yo after fighting his “taster bite” for the entire meal. Yeah, this guy:

I could eat those eyelashes right up, but I’m not sure they’re on my plan.

So.

Have we had to THINK so hard about every meal? Has it been really tough not to graze on chocolate and junk? Is it crazy when there aren’t any easy substitutes and you must plan something or you eat nothing???

Yep.

But I am hoping it will all be worth it.

What “Worth it” Looks Like:

3 healed cavities

lost weight, 10-20 pounds would be nice for hubby, 8-10 for me and a flatter tummy (I’m 4 mos. postpartum)

improved digestion (hubby has Crohn’s Disease, although it’s really not active and hasn’t been for years, but we always figure a Lenten “reset” is a good idea)

more energy

reduced sugar cravings

a new love for vegetables

Thus far, not a pound has left the house (what?????), and my digestion still looks constipated, also surprising. Usually when I’m grain-free I get super regular. I might need to drink more water…

Energy? Tough to even calculate with a 4-month-old in the house and hubby training for a 25K. As soon as he runs over 6 miles, it seems to wipe him out for the day, sadly.

The cravings are getting a little better, and at least I don’t feel ravenous after every meal. I think my tummy is getting flatter already, in spite of the lack of change on the scale.

And the veggies! Oh, the veggies!

The kids are eating more veggies naturally, and I am loving all this variety. I know how to cook – but I usually think of a side veg as a last minute thing and grab frozen green beans or broccoli and call it good.

So this exercise has been very good for my meal planning muscle and my vegetable buying muscle. I highly recommend it!

Have you ever done a Whole30? How did it go?

If you have any questions for us about the food, I’ll answer in the comments!

Disclosure: Plan to Eat is a sponsor receiving their complimentary mention for the month, and affiliate links were used to Tropical Traditions, Amazon and Perfect Supplements.

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